


Who Would Have Thought

by Allwalkfree



Series: You're Alive! [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Family Feels, Five loves Ben, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 20:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18105782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allwalkfree/pseuds/Allwalkfree
Summary: When Ben is suddenly alive, his first instinct is to seek out his best friend





	Who Would Have Thought

When Ben woke up, the first thing he picked upon was the fact that he was waking up in the first place. _‘How could that be possible?_ ’ he wondered. ‘ _He was a ghost. The dead did not sleep.’_

Then he opened his eyes, and the tiredness clinging to his eyelashes, from where he laying on the bed almost gave him a panic attack. Throwing himself into a sitting position, Ben clutched at his covers.

_‘What was going on? Where was he?’_

Gasping for breath he flinched again.  _‘He was breathing? How was that possible?’_

Scrambling of the bed, his legs tangled within the blue covers, and he hit the carpeted floor with a painful thud.

He just lay there for a second. Fingers spread across the soft carpet beneath him, and eyes still screwed shut.  

He could feel the pain. The throwing ache pulsing up from his chin and sending a clear message all the way through his body.

He was alive.

Ben didn’t want to admit it, refused to admit it, but the truth was glaringly obvious. For whatever reason, he was a living, breathing human being again. And any doubt he may have had about this new affliction, was quickly extinguished when a  bone deep ripple crashed through his chest.

_‘They were there. The creatures of his nightmares, were once again residing in his body.’_

“Am alive?” he muttered, lips almost touching the carpet, muffling his words. “Am alive.”

They made a pleased hum within him. “You’re alive,” he said.  

Clenching his fists tightly, he took a deep breath, allowing the monsters within him to settle.

“We’re alive.”

He couldn’t believe it. For however long this miracle was going to last, Ben didn’t know, but this was amazing. He was breathing, he was feeling pain, he.was.alive!

Crawling all the way to the floor and untangling his feet from the bed sheets along the way, Ben allowed himself a moment of respite. Curling in on himself, he let out a tiny giggle.

He knew he would eventually have to stand up and find his siblings. He would have to explain the unexplainable to them, and he would have to face the possibility that this wasn’t going to be permanent, but for now, he just wanted to live amongst the living.

Raising both of his shaking arms, he clutched at his t-shirt, right above his heart. The loud beating sound was almost too overwhelming. He let out a shuddering breath.

“Am alive,” he repeated. “Am.fucking.alive!”

Snapping his eyes open, he grinned like a lunatic at his surroundings. The sense of dread and fair he experienced at first, was slowly dying down, being replaced by a state of euphoria. He wasn’t quite ready to uncurl himself from the tiny ball he had made himself into, but looking around the room, he came to the conclusion that this was indeed his bedroom as he had suspected.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he mumbled.

So not only had he been brought back somehow, but he was also placed in his own room at the manor?’

“How strange.”

This couldn’t be Klaus, he concluded. Ben loved his brother with all his heart, but number four wasn’t adapt or skilled enough in his ability to conjure him up for more than an hour, let alone bring him back from the dead.

Uncurling himself slowly, Ben took his time to sit up.

Legs crossed and arms dangling at his side, he nodded to himself firmly.

 _‘I won’t get any answers by laying around here all day,’_  he though, swiftly rising to his feet. His movements were wobbly, and it took him a minute to readjust his balance.  

Moving forward, he took a quick assessment of himself on the mirror hanging from the wall.

He was wearing none of his dead clothing, he observed.

Instead, a simple white t-shirt, and dark sweatpants hung on his figure.  

Lifting an eyebrow at his appearance, he moved on, making his way across the room until he was standing right in front of the door. There he came to a screeching halt.

_‘What if he walked out that door, and everything went back to the way it was? What if the only reason he was alive, depended on this very room, and he was about to abandon it like the idiot he knew he was?’_

Giving his head a quick shake to banish those dreadful thoughts, Ben put a gentle hand on the doorknob, barely gracing the cold metal with the tips of his fingers.

“This is now or never,” he muttered, before quickly wrenching the door open, preventing himself from backing out of the whole thing.

The door burst open at his command, and he blinked at the corridor in front of him.

He remembered this corridor. Remembered all the tiny little details that went into it. Remembered how Diego had hit his head sharply at that bottom left corner of the wall, and if he looked closer, he was sure he would see the tiny flacks of dried blood stains across it.

This was his home. He was actually home.

Taking a deep, grounding breath, he walked out of the room.

Vaguely he could her his sibling’s laughter and argumentative voices down the hall, and something in him was urging Ben to walk his ass down there, and let his brothers and sisters comfort him till he didn’t feel like crying anymore, but he stopped himself from following those instincts.  

 _‘Klaus is probably in his room right now,’_ he thought. _‘If I’ve got this right, he should be trying to get some sleep right about now._ ’ staring at the clock hanging close to the ceiling, he frowned.  

 _‘I should go see him. He would want me to come see him for something like this,’_  but again he stopped himself.

Not because he didn’t want to see Klaus or anything, but because he knew deep down, he wanted to see someone else so much more. He wanted to see Five.

His mind reeled at the realization. Reeled at this urgent need he had to rush up those stairs and see his brother, his best friend.

The truth was, he loved Klaus. He loved his brother with every fiber of his being, but it was a love born through his interaction with him after his death. They hadn’t been the closest of siblings while Ben was alive. Klaus kept to Allison and sometimes Diego, and Ben stuck like a glue to Five.

Five who always gave him the time of day, when no one else would. Five who was the only one allowed to call him Benny. Five who went missing and wasn’t there when Ben died.

Five was his best friend, and he needed to see him, now.

Glancing guiltily down the path that would lead him to his favorite brother, Ben sent a silent apology to Klaus, before taking the steps two at the time.  

By the time he made it to the top, he was exhausted. Breathing heavily, hands resting on his knees. It was a beautiful feeling.

He gave himself a couple of minutes to gather his bearings, before walking with as much confidence as he could muster, over to the towering door in the corner.

Five’s room loomed over him, casting a tall shadow over the floor. Ben swallowed.  

 _‘Now or never,’_  he thought, shoving the door right open, without any curtesy knock.

Knocking would give him time to bail.

“What the…Klaus!” Five snapped, whirling around, gun in hand. “How many times do I have…”

His words died on his lips.

If Ben wasn’t feeling so nervous already, he would have laughed at the look on Five’s face.

Instead, all he managed was an awkward wave, and a sheepish smile.  “Hi,” he said.

Five gaped at him. “Are you?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Did Klaus?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then how?” Five looked overwhelmed. Taking a step back, his tiny brother leaned heavily against the desk behind him. “How?” he repeated, words coming out croaked and raspy.

Ben shrugged. “I honestly don’t know,” he said, staring at his fingers. His very alive fingers. “I came to find you after I woke up.”

Five frowned, taking a couple of steps forward. “Not Klaus?”

Ben shrugged again. “I was gonna see him after you.”

Five didn’t move for a while, just kept opening staring at his brother.

Finally, Ben had had enough, and just as he was about to say something to snap Five out of his self-educed trance, the time traveling assassin vanished from in front of him.

“Wha…?” Ben stuttered, a sense of loss settling into his bones, like an old friend coming home. ‘Was Five leaving him again? Just as he came back? How was that fair?’

But before he even had the time to formulate those thoughts into words, a tiny body slammed into him out of nowhere, making him stumble a couple of steps back until he hit the wall.

Five wrapped his skinny arms around his neck, grabbing him with such a force, Ben could almost feel the bruises forming.  

Five’s legs were also wrapped around his waist, and his younger, yet older brother was holding onto him for dear life.

“You’re alive,” he muttered against his collarbone. “Oh God, you’re alive.”

Ben didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything. The feeling of having a living, breathing human body so close to him after so long of being dead, was too overwhelming.

He could sense Five’s beating heart against his own chest, and that sensation alone, almost made him cry. But the fact that it was his long-lost brother hugging him now, his best friend and childhood idol, wrapping his arms around him like he would never let him go again, made Ben tremble even more.

Bringing his own arms up to clutch at Five, Ben let out a dry sob. “I missed you,” he croaked into the back of Five’s head. “I missed you so damn much.”

His brother nodded against him. “I missed you too,” he gritted out. Ben closed his eyes and basked in that feeling of home for as long as he could.

Too soon it was over. As Five loosened his grip around his neck and dropped himself to the ground. Ben automatically let go of him before he did, mourning the loss already.

“Who would have though?” Five said, adjusting his tie slightly, and blinking rapidly. “Benny standing right in front of me like this.”

Ben grinned down at him. “Towering over you, you mean?” he said.

Five glared up at him, but the twitching corner of his lips gave him away. “Shut up Benny,” he said, turning around to sit at his desk once again.

Ben didn’t say anything back, still the soft grin plastered on his face. “I need to go see the others now,” he finally let out. “They need to know that I am back alive.”

Five frowned. “Can’t you stay here for a while longer?” he questioned. “You should rest up a bit, before you deal with any of those crazies.”

“Sure,” Ben said, seeing the invite for what it was. Walking fully into the room, he made his way over to his brother’s bed, and flung himself at it, sighing in relief, as he sunk into the bedding.

Five clicked his tongue in disapproval but didn’t say anything.

Turning around in the bed, he stared at his seated brother, who had still not looked away from him.

“What were you reading before I got here?” Ben asked conversationally, curling himself once more into a ball.

The assassin blinked at him, before picking back up the book he had been occupied with before his dead brother had showed up on his doorstep. “Alice in Wonderland,” he answered.

Ben grinned, contemplated for a second, and then scooting over, patting the place next to him in invitation.  

Five scoffed, but non the less, kicked of his shoes, picked up the book, and plopped himself next to his brother.

Throwing the covers around his tiny frame, Ben leaned his head again his sitting brother’s hip, and asked him to read to him.

Five send him an incredulous look, but cracked the book open all the same. His voice was as soothing as Ben remembered.  

Smiling softly, Ben listened to his brother read.

‘Ben was happy, he was alive, he was content.’


End file.
